"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb disputing the outcome."
--(Attributed to) Benjamin Franklin

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Meanwhile, The Economy Swirls Deeper Into The Shitter

Calculated Risk has become my personal source for all things economic-al. Did you know, for example, that a handful of insurance companies--the best-known being "The Hartford"--are trying to buy 'thrifts' so they can get in on the "bail-out?" I mean, everybody knew the 'bail-out' was really a 'give-away,' but this is fuuking RIDICULOUS:

4 insurers seek to buy thrifts for part of bailoutInsurers ask government to let them acquire thrifts so they can receive bailout funds

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four insurance companies on Friday asked the government to allow them to buy thrifts so they can qualify to receive federal money under the financial rescue program.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Genworth Financial Inc., Lincoln National Corp. and Aegon NV, a Dutch company that owns U.S. insurer Transamerica, each asked the Office of Thrift Supervision for permission to acquire an existing savings and loan.

The deadline for filing applications was Friday. The Treasury Department agency said it received submissions from those four firms to become thrift holding companies by acquiring savings and loans.

Insurers that own thrifts, which are federally regulated, are eligible to apply for a piece of the $250 billion the government is spending to buy shares in banks and other financial companies. Thrifts differ from banks in that, by law, they must have at least 65 percent of their lending in consumer loans such as mortgages.

Hartford Financial said it expects to be eligible for between $1.1 billion and $3.4 billion in government bailout money.

The Hartford, Conn.-based company said it had agreed to buy Federal Trust Bank for about $10 million and to inject an undisclosed amount of new capital into the federally chartered savings bank. Federal Trust Bank, now owned by Sanford, Fla.-based Federal Trust Corp., operates 11 branches in Florida.

Richmond, Va.-based Genworth Financial applied to acquire Inter Savings Bank, a thrift based in Minneapolis, according to the thrift agency. Philadelphia-based Lincoln National is looking to buy Newton County Loan & Savings, based in Goodland, Ind., while Transamerica is seeking to acquire Suburban Federal Savings Bank of Crofton, Md.

Insurance companies are mostly regulated at the state level, but insurers that become thrift holding companies are under federal supervision and thereby qualify for the government bailout money.

At least two dozen insurers currently own thrifts.

Many insurers have been struggling. Hartford and Lincoln were among several companies analysts identified this week as likely needing to raise capital and facing the possibility of ratings downgrades.

"It wasn't just the banks and other institutions that were buying the subprime mortgage packages," said Tony Plath, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "It was the insurance industry that bought a lot of that -- which is why they are now backpedaling to write all that stuff off their balance sheets."

Plath said insurance companies are "holding their hand out to Treasury for money because they don't have any capital left to write it off against."

A number of property-casualty insurers have said they aren't interested in participating in the bailout program. The industry appears to be split between life insurers, some of whom have previously expressed interest in participating in the program, and property-casualty companies.

In a letter last month to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Chubb Corp., a major property-casualty insurer, said "we do not believe that allowing property and casualty insurance companies to participate in the (Treasury program) is consistent with the stated purpose" of the law creating it. That purpose is "to restore liquidity and stability" to the U.S. financial system, Chubb noted in the letter.

AP Business Writer Ieva M. Augstums in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this report.

.

This really IS the pits, friends: Insurance companies TRYING to buy 'struggling' thrifts to BOLSTER their bottom lines! Where/when does it stop?

This crisis is the "shock" they've all been waiting for, the cover for ever more FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate)-sale consolidation...

Oh, and did anyone mention that "President" Obama's on-board since Day 1?

Yesterday (Friday) s/he had this up as "Video of the Day": ... a set of clips of Peter Schiff predictions from 2006 and 2007 on FOX News (with his views being ridiculed) (10 minutes)

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Working Class Warrior, also known as a blue-collar Democrat. You believe that the little guy is getting screwed by conservative greed-mongers and corporate criminals, and you’re not going to take it anymore.

Fight For Bloggers' Rights

No "Small" Chips

Half-Empty or Half-Full?That's no choice at all.A better one? "Chipped, or Whole?"Cuz nobody wants to slice their lipSucking in that slaking sip.There are NO "small" chips.I don't much like bloodIn my scotch. You, bud?

--WNNK

Site-O-Meter

Dr. Woody's Droll Dichos & Homey Homilies

"Tweet" and "Twitter": Last gasps of cultural canaries in this hyper-mediated "coal-mine."

A 'gentleman' should be known by the quality of his intoxicants and his generosity with them.

A 9-letter word meaning "Thinking 'Everyone's out to get me.'" 'Paranoiac? "No,"Observant."

A MINIMUM wage that is NOT also a LIVING wage is makes a mockery of "working for a living."

A burning flag never hurt anybody who wasn't wrapped in it.

Age inflicts the subtlest injuries.

Agnosticism: A conviction that arguing over the 'existence' of 'gods' is only idol speculation...

Allowing White people to "define" racism in Murka is like letting priests define pederasty.

Atheism is a "religion" the same way "Off" is a TV channel.

Causation in human affairs is ALWAYS retrospective.

Celebrities are known for BEING known, not for WHAT they know.

Civility is the shit-soaked ball-gag the powerful force onto the People to silence their rage.

Class war only occurs when the workers fight back

Correlation is not causality, but it is close enough for schadenfreude,

Credit cards are nothing so much as renewable instruments of indenture.

Depressions are only really bad for 98-99% of folks. The rest do okay.

Do not automatically impute to 'stupidity' what can equally well be explained by 'malice.'

Do you have the sense that it's already been as good as it's gonna get?

Don't expect to be treated nicely by people to whose faith you are a living rebuke.

Economics is the scientific application of high-level maths to the job of making the Rulers look good.

Everybody's got 'baggage'. What matters is how and what you pack.

Faith is NOT an automatic dispensation from the requirementrs of reason and logic.

Free will (#1) is a handy myth by which the Owners can blame the Losers for their own fate and make the Losers accept the verdict.

Free will (#2) is a metaphorical trap by which the Oners/Owners persuade the powerless to blame themselves for their own oppression.

Freedom in any civilization is measured by the distance between the Church and the State.

Grown-ups don't expect "credit" for doing the right thing, or for NOT doing the wrong one.

Hope is emotional morphine. It doesn't relieve pain, it anulls anxiety about it.

Humanity: A cosmic experiment, testing if Life can survive self-consciousness. The Null Hypothesis appears safe.

I always scored "high" on drug tests...

I believe in higher powers; they're called "exponents."

I find the most vitriolic critics of lawyers usually have NOT been "defendants."

I never lost a job; I knew where every damn one of 'em was the day they let me go...

I'll believe you don't solve problems by throwing money at them when people with money stop throwing it at their problems.

I've not got much use for those who gotta have "God" to be good.

If I know your religious beliefs, and I haven't asked you about'em, you've said too much.

If it's my weed, we're on my schedule; if it's yours, I'm flexible.

If men were conditioned from birth to autofellate, they'd never have to leave the house; there'd be world peace in a generation...

If religious people were susceptible to reason, they wouldn't BE religious people.

If you get better with age, I must SURELY be approaching "splendid" by now.

In a dog's eyes, there's no such thing as "size."

In principle, there are a gazillion explanations for "things" that DON'T require "god," or "divine will" and only one that does. I like the odds.

In the "real" world, nobody cares HOW you win, only THAT you do...

In the Corporate State, corporate media are State Media.

Is "freedom" an intellectual/emotional antidote--the speculative antivenin--to the snake-bite certainty of determinism?

It is often easier an more effective to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

It's hard to quit being an asshole, because it requires admitting you were an asshole to begin with.

It's your pain. Nobody gets to tell you what hurts, how much or what helps.

Law functions best to insulate the Rulers from the insolence of the unruly.

Life is so rich, so variegated, so fecund that I find it unlikely that it is rare.

Life's an existential tautology: It's only purpose is to "be."

Life's too short to drink cheap Scotch,

Men seldom realize they're in the shit til it closes over them.

Men who weep at tragedy are "compassionate"; a weeping woman is "weak."

Metaphor: The art of calling something what it is not, and being understood.

NOTHING of which humans are capable has NOT at some time been both a sin and a sacrament.

No 'quiet desperation.' Not here; here, the despair is LOUD and RUDE.

No language is either "inferior" or "superior." None is "better" nor "worse." Each one uniquely conveys the conditions its speakers require it to describe.

No people, no country, which rewards "entrepreneurs" with profit from the misery of their neighbors and its citizens, --their illness, injury, imprisonment, disability or death--can be regarded as humane and deserves to be called "civilized." That's a nation of fucking, blood-sucking parasites....

No reliable CorpoRat sycophant, of which ever "party," ever left Congress broke.

Nobody gets religion like a slut gone "good."

Nobody's ever too old to be an orphan.

One may be honestly mistaken; but upon learning what is true, one must thereafter cease to be either 1) mistaken or 2) honest.

One may safely ignore those who loudly or proudly proclaim their own sanctity or enlightenment.

One seldom mutters imprecations when drunk that one does NOT think when sober.

One thing "faith" makes possible: ENDLESS self-deception!

One thing about being a solipsist is, you're never really alone.

Optimism is the secular equivalent of "faith."

People who mock lawyers mostly have never been defendants.

Religion is how folks who need 'purpose' invent it.

Religion is the safest grift: Nobody can say "God" didn't "say" what you say "He said."

Sarcasm: For when it's really NOT worth prison.

Sex is just sex. All the rest is adjectives.

Speed kills. Weed chills.

Television: Electronic thorazine for an irritable polis.

That I am not surprised does not mean I am not outraged.

The "positive thinking" and "self-reliance" rhetoric is a tool the Bosses use to blame the proles for failing to overcome the hurdles, pitfalls, and obstacles the Owners set before them.

The "sin" at the root of all "religious" crimes is "thought."

The Bosses don't have to control what you think as long as they control what you think about, and how you think about it."

The Difference? Drunks run stop-signs; stoners wait for 'em to turn green.

The Rich make "choices": Porsche or Jag;the poor make "decisions": Food or rent.

The Secret of Life: It's doable, once you quit expecting it not to suck.

The biggest difference between "flying" and "falling" is in the landing.

The epitome of human hubris is the frantic search for the cure for death.

The greatest privilege the privileged enjoy is the privilege of pretending they aren't privileged.

The more knowledge there is, the less "miraculous" the Universe seems, but the MORE astonishing.